Southbank Sinfonia

St John's resident orchestra – Southbank Sinfonia - opens the Waterloo Festival with a programme including two major works which bookended the Second World War. Sergei Prokofiev struggled against Stalin's regime to write the music that he wanted. In his dazzling second Violin Concerto of 1935, he found his true voice: a simple, uplifting song of hope in a doomed society. Written in the final months of the war in 1945, Richard Strauss' 'Metamorphosen' for 23 solo strings paints a heartbreaking portrait of a world forever changed by war.